I spent hours driving around the city looking to familiarize myself with my new hometown. The city is inviting, nestled on the Pacific in a place where the sun shines nearly three hundred days a year. I drove past the airport, which sits mere yards from the bay. There’s even an outdoor escalator that thrusts you right into the warm San Diego sun. You get sucked into this city mostly because you have nowhere left to go, but I’d learned that that’s what the California dream can come to. That’s how I felt now, holed up in a desperate little room. This was not my California dream.
I didn’t have any money coming in since I walked out, or rather ran out, of my job after the first three hours. I was going to have to sell some of that shit I brought down. Maybe apply at one of those Indian casinos all over the hills to the north that I kept hearing about. All the concerts seemed to be held in one of the dozen or so out there. It might be nice to head into the mountains for a bit.
I ended up in San Diego because a cousin of mine suggested it might be the place to lay low for a while. I came by way of the big town, L.A., but that’s not where my journey began. Sitting there in the dark, I had a lot of time to think about how I’d gotten to that point. I worked my way down the 5 from Fresno where I’d grown up. My parents were migrant workers from Central America. They moved north when I was three years old and never left. I grew up in a series of plywood shacks in various fields during the picking season and we’d rent a one-bedroom apartment in Fresno the rest of the year. I never saw my parents go to bed on anything but sleeper sofas or futons, whichever was available or cheapest at the local thrift shops. My parents could outfit a home for around $250 but it seemed like they could only afford $200 of it. They were always trying to make ends meet.
I remember the tourist kids coming through town in the summer asking what we did in Fresno for fun. I could never think of anything to tell them. All I ever wanted was to get the fuck out and never look back. There isn’t shit to do in Fresno once you turn eighteen. Jobs are scarce. I sold some weed to make money in high school. Nothing big, I’d buy an ounce and split it, the occasional quarter-pound if I could get it cheap, but never more than that. I basically sold weed so I could smoke weed. I had to stay off the police radar since my parents were never able to apply for green cards, but mostly I kept out of trouble.
I had to make a living so I did about the only thing you could do in Fresno: wait tables. I started at the Denny’s working latenight shifts and worked my way up to the local Applebee’s. After a few years of busting my hump in the restaurant business, I decided to make my move to L.A. I had a universal skill and enough of a resume to be able to get a waiting job almost anywhere. And let’s face it. It wasn’t like I was going to try to get a job in the movie business. I’m not a handsome man. If you were to ask people who I looked like, they wouldn’t name anyone famous. In my community they might call me pura cara de indio, or “full-on Indian face.” It’s not a compliment.
So before I left town, I stopped by my weed man, picked up a quarter-pound, just in case I had trouble finding a hook-up in L.A. or needed to sell some for quick cash until I got work. I went by my Tío José’s place to say goodbye. My uncle didn’t think it was such a great idea to drive 230 miles with four ounces of marijuana, but I told him, “It’s only weed, Tío. You get like a hundred-dollar ticket for selling an ounce or less, and you know me. I don’t break the law.” I waved goodbye and jumped in my beat-up, skunky-smelling Ford Taurus and headed south.
My uncle knew what I meant. I always drove the speed limit and my lights always worked. My car was always registered. I couldn’t afford to get pulled over since I couldn’t get a driver’s license. I couldn’t afford to get busted and sent back across the border. That would kill my chances of getting my immigration papers in order. You get caught without papers and your name goes on a list and you can never apply for legal residency, and that was what drove me. I had to get legal. My father was on such a list. He got caught in an immigration round-up in the ’70s, leaving us alone until he was able to sneak back into the country. He eventually died here but was never allowed the opportunity to immigrate legally.
My first job was a diner on Third Street near the La Brea Tar Pits. A stepping stone until things started to look up. It didn’t happen right away. I toiled there for a couple of years before I saw any daylight. Not until the mid-’90s when casinos started going up in L.A. One of my fellow waiters told me about a job at the latest casino opening next door to the racetrack in Inglewood. I was lucky and I got in on the ground floor, working in their fine dining room.
I loved the hectic pace of the casino. I took some classes and learned how to deal cards and soon moved from the dining room to the casino floor. I worked the Pai Gow and black-jack tables dealing cards to old Asian women with too many diamonds on their hands and gray-skinned locals. I discovered I liked the gambling environment so I got a second job at the racetrack. I found myself dealing cards at night and during the day punching tickets for the most miserable bunch of optimists you ever saw. There were guys I’d see every day the track was open and there were people I’d see both at the casino and at the track. Where did they get the money to gamble full-time?
I ask because after too many years of dealing cards and keeping up with the ponies and not doing shit about my illegal status, I was mired in a financial shitstorm. This casino, unlike most gaming establishments, allowed its employees to play the tables as long as we weren’t in uniform. Some days I’d blow $200 at the track and another $200 at the card tables at night. Oh, I’d win a few, but the odds are always in the house’s favor. Soon, due to fiscal pressures brought upon by my creditors and unsound investments, I found I owed over forty large to various parties, none of whom I could afford to pay or continue to owe. I owed Eddie P. the biggest part of the nut, $25,000. I borrowed from him to pay Lazy Louis some of the $20,000 I owed him and another guy who I owed over $10,000. I’d been juggling for a while but it finally caught up with me. Living off credit is one thing, but owing these guys was another. Banks garnished your wages. Guys like Eddie P. and Louis took body parts for payments and killed you if you didn’t fulfill your obligation.
That’s when I finally listened to my cousin’s pitch about San Diego. I’d never paid him much mind before. The last thing someone without a green card wants to do is drive south, but I had few options in L.A. I left my two jobs suddenly and without much notice. The world I inhabited there was small and my creditors were everywhere. I had to get out fast. So when my cousin said, “Hey, we have a racetrack here. I bet you could get a job,” I told him see you in three or four hours. I picked up my two paychecks, snuck out the back door, visited my weed man, and didn’t stop until I got to San Diego—not the “real” San Diego but the barrio my cousin lived in.
Getting a job at the track was easy. The racing season in Del Mar is a big affair. People come in from out of town and businesses thrive. The hotels are packed and the restaurants and bars are full of revelers. Ask any local waiter or waitress about working opening day and you’ll hear horror stories. To me they were hilarious, tales of inebriated men and women coming in for dinner after a day of partying at the track. Some arrive already too wasted to place their next drink order. It’s not unusual to see a breast fall out over dinner, and there always seems to be some girl in a miniskirt splayed ass-over-tea kettle on the walkway. The thong has made this particular vigil worth waiting for. Occasionally there is no panty to speak of.